Innocent Graves (31 page)

“What now?” he asked.

“What? Oh.” The solicitor glanced away from the disappearing figure. “Wonderful woman, isn’t she? I told you if anyone could do it, Shirley Castle could. It was a majority verdict, you know. Ten to two. That’s what took them so long. What now? Well, you’re free, that’s what.”

“But … what do I do? I mean, my stuff and …”

“Tell you what.” Wharton looked at his watch. “I’ll drive you back over to the prison, if you like, and you can pick your stuff up, then I’ll take you back to Eastvale.”

Owen nodded. “Thanks. How do we … I mean, do we just walk out of here?”

Wharton laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that’s exactly what we do. Hard to get used to, eh? But I think there’ll be a bit of a mob out front, we’d better leave by the back way.”

“A mob?”

Wharton frowned. “Yes. Well, you’ve seen the papers. Those sly innuendos about the ‘evidence they couldn’t present in court.’ That not-guilty verdict won’t have sunk in with them yet, will it? People lose all sense of proportion when they get carried away by chants and whatnot. Come on.”

In a daze, Owen followed Wharton through the corridors to the back exit. The sun was shining on the narrow backstreet; opposite was a refurbished Victorian pub, all black trim and etched, smoked-glass windows; under his feet, the worn paving-stones looked gold in the midday light. Freedom.

Owen breathed the air deeply; a warm, still day. When he thought about it, he realized the trial had lasted almost two months, and it was now May, the most glorious month in the Dales. Back up near Eastvale, the woods, fields and hillsides would be a ablaze with wildflowers: bluebells, wild garlic, celandines, cowslips, violets and primroses; and here and there would be the fields of bright yellow rape-seed.

As they walked towards Wharton’s car, Owen could vaguely hear the crowd outside the front of the courthouse: women’s voices mostly, he thought, chanting, “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”

IV

“Fuck it,”
said Barry Stott loudly. Then he said it again, banging his fist on the arm of the bench for emphasis.
“Fuck it.”
A couple standing by the pub door gave him a dirty look. “Sorry,” he said to Banks, blushing right up to the tips of his jug-ears. “I just had to let it out.”

Banks nodded in sympathy. It was the first time he had ever heard Barry Stott swear, and he had to admit he didn’t blame him.

They were sitting on the long bench outside Whitelock’s in the narrow alley called Turk’s Head Yard, drinks and food propped on the upturned barrel that served as a table. Along with his pint of Younger’s bitter, Banks had a Cornish pasty with chips and gravy, and Stott had a Scotch egg with HP Sauce, with a half of shandy to wash it down. They had just left Leeds Crown Court after the Owen Pierce verdict.

It was a beautiful May day; the pub had lured students from their studies and encouraged office workers to linger over their lunch-hours. Not much light penetrated Turk’s Head Yard because of the high walls of the buildings on both sides, but the air was warm and full of the promise of summer. Men sat with their jackets off and shirtsleeves rolled up, while bare-legged women opened an extra button or two on their blouses.

Banks took a sip of beer before tucking into the pasty. He watched Stott pick at the Scotch egg, dip little pieces in the sauce, chew and swallow, too distracted to taste the food. It was obvious that he had no appetite. He had only eaten half when he pushed his plate away. Banks finished his own lunch quickly and lit a cigarette.

“I can’t believe he got off,” Stott said. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I’m just as pissed off as you are, Barry, but it happens,” said Banks. “You get used to it. Don’t take it personally.”

“But I do. It was me who cottoned on to him, me who tracked him down. We build a solid case, and he just walks away.”

Banks didn’t bother reminding him how it was teamwork and hard procedural slog that had led them to Owen Pierce. “The case obviously wasn’t solid enough,” he said. “Dr Tasker wasn’t very good, for a start. Even Glendenning wasn’t up to his usual form. Who knows? Maybe they were right?”

“Who?”

“The jury.”

Stott shook his head. His ears seemed to flap with the motion. “No. I can’t accept that. He did it. I know he did. I feel it in my bones. He murdered that poor girl, and he got away with it. You know, if we’d got the evidence from Michelle Chappel in, then we’d have got a conviction for certain. The judge made a hell of a mistake there.”

“Perhaps. Did you see her there, by the way?”

“Where? Who?”

“Michelle Chappel. In court. I don’t know if she’s been there all along but she was in the public gallery for the verdict. She’d let her hair grow since last November, too. Looked more like Deborah Harrison than ever. She was even wearing a maroon blazer. She was talking to that reporter from the
News of the World
.”

“See what I mean,” said Stott. “If we’d been able to bring out that connection, her evidence of what he did to her, there’s no jury in the country wouldn’t have convicted Pierce.”

“Maybe so, but that’s not the point, Barry.”

Stott flushed. “Excuse me, but I think it is. A guilty man has just walked out of that courtroom after committing one of the most horrible murders I have ever investigated, and you tell me that’s not the point. I’m sorry, but—”

“I mean it’s not the point I’m trying to make.”

Stott frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“Why is Michelle Chappel so keen to stick the knife in Pierce?”

“Oh, I see. Well, maybe because he beat her up. Or perhaps because he tried to strangle her? Or could being raped by him after he knocked her out have upset her just a little bit?”

Banks sipped some more beer. “All right, Barry, give it a rest. I catch your drift. Perhaps you’re right. But why hang around after her evidence was declared inadmissible? Just to watch him suffer? Why take time off work?”

Stott frowned. “What makes you think there’s a connection?”

“It’s just odd, that’s all.” Banks stubbed out his cigarette and drank some more beer. “Her hair was short when we talked to her.”

“Women’s hair,” said Stott with a shrug. “Who knows anything about that?”

Banks smiled. “Good point. Another pint? Half, rather?”

“Should we?”

“Yes, we damn well should. Jimmy Riddle’s going to be out for our blood. Might as well put off the inevitable as long as possible.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll have another half of shandy. Then I’ll have to be off.”

Banks edged through the crowd to the bar, looking at his reflection in the antique mirror at the back while he waited. Not too bad for his early forties, he thought, still slim and trim, despite the pints and the poor diet; a few lines around the eyes, maybe, and a touch a grey at the temples, but that was all. Besides, they added character, Sandra said.

He intended to part company with Stott after the next drink and visit an old friend while he was in Leeds: Pamela Jeffreys, a violist with the English Northern Philharmonic orchestra. About a year ago, she had been badly hurt in an attack for which Banks still blamed himself. She wasn’t back in the orchestra yet, but she was working hard and getting there fast, and this afternoon, she was playing a chamber concert at the university’s music department. It might go some small way towards making up for the disappointment in court this morning.

He might also, while he was so close, drop in at the Classical Record Shop and see about the Samuel Barber song collection he had been wanting for a while. Listening to Dawn Upshaw singing “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” on the drive down had made him think about it.

On the other hand, the not-guilty verdict changed things. While he was in Leeds, he would also phone DI Ken Blackstone and see about having a chat with one of Jela
č
i
ć
’
s card-playing cronies. He might even have another word with Jela
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ć
himself.

Though the Crown would probably appeal the verdict, as far as Banks was concerned it was back to the drawing-board for the time being, a drawing-board he was beginning to feel he should never have left in the first place. And Ive Jela
č
i
ć
was certainly high on his list of loose ends.

“Damn that judge,” said Stott when he had thanked Banks for the drink. “Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.”

“I’m not convinced Michelle Chappel’s testimony would have helped as much as you think, Barry,” Banks said.

“Why not? At least it proves he had homicidal tendencies towards young women of Deborah Harrison’s physical type.”

“It proves nothing of the kind,” said Banks. “Okay, I’ll admit, I was as excited about the psychological possibilities it opened up as you were. And, yes, I was bloody annoyed that Simmonds excluded it. But now I think about it, looking at her in court, I’m not so sure.”

Stott scratched the back of his left ear and frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I think that defence lawyer, Shirley Castle, would have made mincemeat of her, that’s why. In the final analysis, she’d have had the jury believing that Michelle Chappel was lying, that she did what she did out of pure vindictiveness towards Pierce, for revenge, because she harboured a grudge for the way he treated her.”

“And rightly so, after what he did to her.”

“But don’t you see how it would discredit her testimony, Barry, make her seem like a lying bitch? Especially with such criticisms coming from another woman. That could be pretty damning. She’s good is Ms Castle. I’ve been up against her before. She’d have made sure that Pierce convinced them with his version of that night’s events. And if they believed that he had simply been warding off the frenzied attack of a hysterical woman, then he could have gained their sympathy.”

Stott took off his glasses and polished them with a spotless handkerchief. “I still think it would have helped us get a conviction.”

“Well there’s no way of knowing now, is there?”

“I suppose not,” Stott said glumly. “What do we do now?”

“There’s not much more we can do.”

“Reopen the investigation?”

Banks sipped some beer. “Oh, yes. I think so, don’t you? After all, Barry, someone out there killed Deborah Harrison, and according to all the hallmarks, it looks very much like someone who might do it again.”

THIRTEEN

I

Vjeko Batorac was out when Banks called in the afternoon, and a neighbour said he usually came home from work at about five-thirty. Ken Blackstone, who said Batorac was probably the most believable of Jela
č
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ć
’
s three card-playing cronies, had given Banks the address.

Grateful for the free time, Banks played truant; he went up to the university and spent a delightful hour listening to Vaughan Williams’s
String Quartet No. 2
.

And he was glad he did. As he watched and listened, all the stress and disappointment of the verdict, all his fears of having persecuted the wrong man in the first place, seemed to become as insubstantial as air, at least for a while.

As he watched Pamela Jeffreys play in the bright room, prisms of light all around, her glossy raven hair dancing, skin like burnished gold, the diamond stud in her right nostril flashing in the sun, he thought not for the first time that there was something intensely, spiritually erotic about a beautiful woman playing music.

It seemed, as he watched, that Pamela first projected her spirit and emotions into her instrument, the bow an extension of her arm, fingers and strings inseparable, then she became the music, flowing and soaring with its rhythms and melodies, dipping and swooping, eyes closed, oblivious to the world outside.

Or so it seemed. Though he had taken a few hesitant steps towards learning the piano, Banks couldn’t actually play an instrument, so he was willing to admit he might be romanticizing. Maybe she was thinking about her pay-cheque.

Erotic fantasies aside, it was all perfectly innocent. They had coffee and a chat afterwards, then Banks headed back to Batorac’s house.

Vjeko Batorac lived in a small pre-war terrace house in Sheepscar, near the junction of Roseville Road and Roundhay Road, less than a mile from Jela
č
i
ć
’
s Burmantofts flat. There was no garden; the front door, which looked as if it had been freshly painted, opened directly onto the pavement. This time, a few minutes before six o’clock, Banks’s knock was answered by a slight, hollow-cheeked young man with fair hair, wearing oil-stained jeans and a clean white T-shirt.

“Molim?”
said Batorac, frowning.

“Mr Batorac?” Banks asked, showing his warrant card. “I wonder if I might have a word? Do you speak English?”

Batorac nodded, looking puzzled. “What is it about?”

“Ive Jela
č
i
ć
.”

Batorac rolled his eyes and opened the door wider. “You’d better come in.”

The living-room was sunny and clean, and just a hint of baby smells mingled with those of cabbage and garlic from the kitchen. What surprised Banks most of all was the bookcase that took up most of one wall, crammed with English classics and foreign titles he couldn’t read. Serbo-Croatian, he guessed. The “Six O’Clock News” was on Radio 4 in the background.

“That’s quite a library you’ve got.”

Batorac beamed. “
Hvala lipo
. Thank you very much. Yes, I love books. In my own country I was a schoolteacher. I taught English, so I have studied your language for many years. I also write poetry.”

“What do you do here?”

Batorac smiled ironically. “I am a garage mechanic. Fortunately for me, in Croatia you had to be good at fixing your own car.” He shrugged. “It’s a good job. Not much pay, but my boss treats me well.”

A baby started crying. Batorac excused himself for a moment and went upstairs. Banks examined the titles in more detail as he waited: Dickens, Hardy, Keats, Austen, Balzac, Flaubert, Coleridge, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Milton, Kafka … Many he had read, but many were books he had promised himself to read and never got around to. The baby fell silent and Batorac came back.